EMPOWERED

PART ILessons from Top Tech Companies

My first book, INSPIRED, discussed how strong product teams at the best product companies use the modern techniques of product discovery to solve hard problems in ways their customers love, yet work for their business.

INSPIRED brought me and my SVPG Partners into many more organizations, well beyond Silicon Valley.

The most striking thing we learned was that in so many companies—even companies trying to do true, technology‐powered products and services—product teams were too often not allowed to work the way they needed to.

We realized that it's not just the techniques that strong product teams use to discover successful products, but that the differences between how great product companies work and the rest run much deeper.

What we found in these companies was not pretty.

The Role of Technology

So many companies still have the old IT mindset when it comes to technology. It's viewed as a necessary cost rather than the core business enabler it needs to be. The people who work on the technology teams are literally there “to serve the business,” and the technology managers and leaders are there to facilitate serving the business. Or it's shoved off to the side in some “digital” business unit. The technology teams are disconnected from the real customers—in fact, they're encouraged to think of their stakeholders as their customers.

Coaching

There is little if any active coaching of the people on the technology teams. And even if they wanted ...